For more than 21 years, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has sponsored more than 45 Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions (AVTC) that have engaged more than 15,000 students from 85 different colleges and universities. While some of the technical goals and execution have changed over the years, the competitions have had a common theme – to accelerate the development and demonstration of technologies of interest to the DOE and the automotive industry, to help prepare the market to accept advanced vehicle technologies, and to seed the automotive industry with a new generation of engineering graduates that have hands-on, real-world experience that better prepares them for the energy and transportation-related challenges of the 21st century.

General Motors has been a major sponsor for many of these competitions alongside the DOE and has experienced firsthand the tremendous value that competition-trained engineers can bring to the professional world. In recent years, GM has hired more than 50 graduates from these competitions and the talent and experience they have brought to the company has been extremely beneficial throughout the organization.

Watch this video to see the story of just a few of the talented engineers who are AVTC alumni now working for General Motors: Shannon Reeves, Daniel Mehr, Mike Arnett and Cindy Svestka.